On June 2, 1975, sex workers in Lyon, France, occupied a church for two months, an action that inspired the contemporary sex-worker rights movement. On June 2 this year, 60 sex workers and supporters held a demonstration at Circular Quay to protest against the NSW parliament's passage of the Brothels Legislation Amendment Act. Protesters described the legislation as a significant "reversal of decriminalisation".
In 1995, NSW decriminalised all aspects of sex work and gave regulatory powers for the sex industry to local councils. Some councils, such as South Sydney, embraced the reforms, but others took their new role to be that of a "moral" regulator. Parramatta City Council, for example decided not to allow any sex work at all.
Today, around half the local councils in NSW have a prohibitive approach toward the sex industry, allowing "compliant" brothels only in industrial areas, if at all. Only a very small number of sex industry premises are able to comply with the law because local councils have stymied this at every step. Brothel development applications that meet all of a council's requirements are often refused in order that the council can appear "tough on crime" (despite brothels not being technically illegal).
In the vast majority of cases where the brothel owners then takes the council to court, the owners win, but the court battles often last 18 months and cost, on average, $100,000.
In response to local government lobbying, the NSW government passed the legislation amendment in late June to grant more powers to councils to close brothels, including the power to turn off a premises's electricity and water on circumstantial evidence and impose rolling fines on sex workers who move from suburb to suburb to continue working.
The new legislation is ostensibly aimed at brothels, but individual sex workers will be the hardest hit. Many will lose their jobs or be forced onto the streets. The June 2 demonstration demanded that the government protect the decriminalisation laws passed in 1995, and the sex worker rights that accompany those laws.
A second protest was held outside NSW Parliament House on June 27, at which the protesters held red umbrellas, an international symbol of sex worker solidarity. Further action is being planned. For more information, visit <http://www.scarletalliance.org.au>.